Jake was served a delicious pancake breakfast made by his sisters with love. We gave him his birthday gifts and he said the one thing he REALLY wants is to catch a fish and to have a fish dinner.
We finally pulled out of the marina at Palmas Del Mar, and waved goodbye to the friendly staff.

It felt SO GOOD to be back at sea once again, and it was especially exciting to watch Kjira and Jake on their maiden voyage on Tanda Malaika.

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As we raised the sails, they moved forward to sit on the seats right at the bow, and Jake yelled at the top of his lungs, “I’m the king of the world!” It is, in part, these moments with our family that makes everything worth it!

We bid farewell to mainland Puerto Rico and her beautiful green mountains and hills.

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Our destination, was Cayo Santiago, commonly known as Monkey Island. The Macaques have been living there since 1930. They were brought in by scientists who wanted closer access to them rather than chasing through the jungles of Asia to find them. Large amounts of data has been collected efficiently in a much shorter period of time. The National Institute of Health and the University of Puerto Rico fund the research. Cages are still stacked in one area on the island.

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We watched as groups ate leaves in the trees, some with babies clinging to their bodies. Did you know a group of monkeys is called a congress? Makes sense.

Some sat at the waters edge, dipping their fingers in and sucking the salt off, while other searched under rocks for grubs.

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We were not allowed to set foot on the island, so we stood in the water as close as we could get…

I love this shot of Jude with her spiffy new camera.

The babies were our favorite.

I caught this one nursing.

We just wanted to cuddle them!

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What an adventure!!!

After prying ourselves away from here, we sailed to one of the Spanish Virgin Islands, Vieques.

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Jake caught a barracuda, which is what he was hoping to do on his birthday!!!

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We arrived at sunset as the jungle was immersed in a yellow glow.

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We immediately dove in to look for lobster and conch. We didn’t find lobster but I surfaced with 4 conch, Jude and Kjira got the conch out of their shells like ninjas, and I cooked Jake not only some delicious Pompano steaks on the grill, but also Conch fritter on the stove. He ate till he was literally sick.

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The moonscape was absolutely gorgeous!

Jude and Kjira swam in the dark and played in the bioluminescence. We listened to Kjira with big smiles on our faces and she exclaimed over and over, ‘oh my gosh, this is amazing!!!’ Life, is amazing!